When in the fall of 2010 fishermen from the Okhansk region brought a small piece of tusk to the Perm Museum of Local Lore, the first reaction of the staff to this find was not too enthusiastic: “Well, another mammoth - who can you surprise with this in the Kama region?” However, exploration at the site of the find suggested that the steep bank of the Kama hides part of the skeleton not of a woolly mammoth, but of its more ancient ancestor, the trogontery elephant.
“The find turned out to be unique on the scale of Russia: for the first time, fragments of the skeletons of several trogontery elephants were found in one location, as well as the primitive bison, ancient horse, deer and other animals living with them side by side,” says the head of the 2018–2019 expedition Evgenia Mashchenko from Paleontological Institute named after A. A. Borisyak of the Russian Academy of Sciences, - but most importantly - the bones and the huge tusk of the trogontery elephant."
This is the largest - 3, 25 meters long - a rare fossil tusk ever found on the territory of Russia. Now the giant tusk, like other finds, is being studied in the laboratory of the Perm Museum of Local Lore, where it is planned to create a reconstruction of the skeleton of a trogonteria elephant for a new paleontological exposition. In addition, a comprehensive study of the location will make it possible to determine the dynamics of natural conditions during the life of these mammals and to reconstruct ancient landscapes.